Investigating the Importance of EFL High School Teachers’ Intercultural Awareness

Abstract

The core values of ELT are to enable students to understand language in use, this puts the focus on the crucial role of interculturality and how it may hinder the effective teaching process due to its complexity. While teachers’ linguistic competence has been under great concern, it seems that Algerian schools often overlook the significance of interculturality. To find answers for this problem, this study opts for a questionnaire administered to 20 secondary school teachers to examine their perceptions and understanding of interculturality. The findings reveal how teachers dismiss the intercultural dimension both in class and in their daily life. Thus, the incorporation of alternative methods that aim at the intercultural training of teachers is necessary for having culturally sensitive students who can make use of their knowledge to solve real-life problems in context.